Developed by England-based Frontier, Dog's Life was much loved by my thirteen year-old self. I'd always wanted to play a game wherein a dog, horse or other fascinating four-legged creature was fully operable as a main character, but wasn't absolute crud like Mary King's Riding Star. Dog's Life was very much the answer, although I'd still like a title where I can be a horse for the entire time.
All of my original freebie stickers are still intact:
Jake is a dog, who likes Daisy, also a dog. He has a nice chilled-out life in Clarksville, wherein he gets to lounge in the sun, not wear clothes or go to school, emit noxious farts that kill butterflies, and where his only troubles are the fact that the aforementioned Daisy is not too keen on him. But then, some mean bad people come and put the both of them in dog crates, and into the back of a lorry. Jake's cage tumbles out, and while everybody remains oblivious, he realises that he must go after Daisy. He also takes ten times longer to figure out what is happening via the game dialogue than you do. Did I mention that this game is PEGI 3+?
The cause of the problem is Miss Peaches, cat-lover who shames the rest of us, having humorous henchmen steal canines from the streets, to go into her garish brand of feline food. This gives the game the unfortunate connotation of the real rendering plants that used deceased pets put-down with dangerous sodium pentobarbital, which does survive the process, to make food. Ironically, product placement for a major brand that had previously been accused of such actions, features throughout the game.
My partner thinks that all the dogs in this title look like Stains, especially the one at the top of the ski slope.
Dog's Life is great, creative fun. You can press buttons to crap in the street, pee on people, pick up your poo and throw it at strangers. However, it is very easy to cause a glitch. I shall demonstrate with the following poor-quality phone-taken photographs:
Roof turd
I was stood on the ground near to a shop when this happened
Ceiling cat
A dog and snowmobile rider on pre-programmed paths eventually meet and become stuck
WhatisthisIdon'teven.
The sound cuts-out a lot and the visuals are all over the ruddy shop. I don't think there was any sufficient testing of this title. I think they got fed-up with the early glitches and pretended to have completed the rest of it. There are some things that I am very surprised made it into the final cut.
Going on the stereotype that dogs like bones, pretty much everything you do in the game involves seeking a bone as a reward. You assert your dominance over dogs you meet by having eaten more bones than them, the desired end result being that you are more dominant than the dog guarding the cat food factory. You challenge the local dog of a given area by going into Smellovision, collecting all the smells of certain colours, and winning a competition that usually involves peeing, digging or tug-of-war. Success allows you to control the other dog, and complete a task with their abilities, in turn earning you another bone.
I started a new save file to trial the game before this review, and had immense problems with it. At first, Smellovision would simply not activate when I pressed the triangle button, preventing me from earning enough bones to move on. Then, I had involuntary Smellovision. It activated and deactivated as it pleased. Eventually the function behaved as if I was constantly tapping triangle, changing the viewpoint rapidly and making me feel as if I was quite literally tripping down the mountain. I got a headache. It was almost impossible to play, but I was determined not to rage-quit.
Butchering the PS2 controller apart was not the remedy, and plugging in a different one didn't work. The game also began to behave as if I was constantly toggling triangle out of gameplay, by cancelling what I was trying load or save and by unpausing. When I first played Dog's Life as a teenager, the only real glitch was lag and horrifically slow movements at the top of the Miniwahwah ski slope until I left the area. That error was not present this time around.
My partner's reaction:
Whilst my copy of the game is frustratingly broken in many a way, I don't want you to be put off of the title entirely. It really is great fun, for children and adults alike, and the only real opportunity you'll have to crap on somebody's shoes. There are lots of cool little details, poodle parlours you can go into to get sparkly clean and have a change of collar each time (shock: Jake's legs are actually white!), you can pick up chickens, (accidentally) shake cats until their fur falls off, eat what falls out of skunks, wear a strange selection of found wigs (although children should really be taught to be suspicious of bones and hair found in the snow), watch sheep bums emit green gas, listen to a cool guitar dude perform something suspiciously close to Sweet Home Alabama, listen to radios indoors, and repeatedly bark awake an old man to hear a variety of innuendo. "I never owned a banana costume!". "Oh please, let me feel the rubber one!".
The music is mostly nice and mellow, evoking a sentimental, summery feel:
The backing of this one is from Project Zero, however:
Something that I think would have cost the game its 3+ rating had anybody played it thoroughly, is the [SPOILER alert] ending. It took the game from having a nice delightful vibe to something a bit more grim. I don't think it warranted a much higher rating, but considering the normal outcries about relatively mild games, I'm surprised the content that is there wasn't more of an issue.
Dog's Life seems to be virtually unheard of, which is a shame considering that the basis of its concepts is solid. I think a reboot with improved programming and testing or even a sequel would be well received and enjoyed.
Dog's Life is a nice cheery retreat that will make you nostalgic for childhood holidays, and is worthy of a place in your collection. I literally woke up with a craving to play it, and I'm sure you would from time to time too.
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